“But, Detective, you don’t understand,” Maren pleaded. “I don’t even know if Winnie’s going to be OK, but if she is, she might be in real danger. You’re not even going to try to figure out who did this?”
“Of course we’ll be checking with all the neighbors to see if there’s any useful home security footage or if anyone heard or saw anything, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Unfortunately, most cases like this are never solved. But here’s my card. Please call me if you think of anything else or your daughter remembers anything more concrete. In the meantime, my prayers are with you and your family.”
That was it? The risk of making rich people mad outweighed Winnie’s right to health and safety? Unfortunately, Maren knew if she kept pushing him, he might run a background check on her, which would reveal the one stain destined to define her forever—and then he’d never believe another word she uttered. She was almost out of moves. “It’s just Winnie and me. No other family.” She hoped maybe this information might spark his sympathy, encouraging him to launch a real investigation.
“Well then, my prayers are with you and your daughter, Mrs. Pressley.” Detective Davis shook Maren’s hand and left.
As the detective walked out the door, Maren stifled the urge to scream in frustration. She caught the eye of the desk clerk, who shook her head in answer to Maren’s silent question. Still no word. Turning to take her seat in the waiting area again, Maren noticed that she was the only one there now. Aside from the desk clerk, she was all alone with her darkest fears. There was nothing to say and no one to say it to anyway. Her body hurt in a visceral way, like someone had carved her in half with a rusty bread knife. The only thing that mattered was the one thing she didn’t know—whether Winnie would be OK.
11
Kelly
Kelly had become obsessed with trying to confirm that her explosive information about Maren’s academic history had reached Ted Clark and, more to the point, whether he or Alicia had managed to “persuade” Winnie not to apply to Stanford. She’d spotted Winnie in the hallway wearing a UW sweatshirt a couple days earlier, which she took as a good sign. And then just yesterday, Maren had forwarded a detailed plan for the Snowcoming dance for Kelly’s approval. If Maren was still working on Snowcoming, that meant Alicia hadn’t fired her. There was no way Alicia would let Maren get away with stealing what she considered to be Brooke’s spot, so Kelly could only assume (or hope) that Maren and Winnie had realized they were punching above their weight with Stanford.
“Good morning, Sherri,” Kelly said, giving the college counseling team’s administrative assistant her most winning smile. “I just wanted to drop off a little treat.” Kelly handed over a Tupperware container full of homemade chocolate-chip cookies as her eyes scanned Sherri’s desk for any useful tidbits, but Sherri had all her paperwork either facedown or tucked into blank folders. EBA seemed to have instituted new CIA-level protocols for handling sensitive information.
“Well, aren’t you a doll.” Sherri peeked inside. “I’ll be sure to put them in the counselors’ lounge. Right after I sneak one myself. You parents are so thoughtful. You’re the fourth mother today to stop by with treats.”
“Oh, that’s great. I know how hard you all must be working with early admission deadlines approaching,” she said, unfazed by Sherri’s implication. “Well, OK then, I’ll come by in a day or two to collect the Tupperware.” As Kelly retreated, she tried to peek inside Ms. Barstow’s office, but Sherri jumped up out of her desk chair and blocked her line of sight. Foiled but not about to give up, Kelly sauntered down the hall to the Taylor Family Conference Room to pretend to work on important SST business while monitoring the comings and goings of the college counseling office. When she pulled open the door, she was surprised to find several other mothers standing around chatting. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one skulking around school fishing for college intel.
“Can you believe the nerve of that girl? Applying to every top-ten school? And with a fake hook?” Nora Chapman said as Kelly took her place in the circle. Nora’s son, Scotty, was a Princeton double legacy. “I called Ted the minute I heard.”
“I know! Give the rest of us a chance. Right?” Kelly said.
“I cornered Ted at the middle school band concert last night, and he was totally evasive,” Patti Moore said, shaking her head. “It’s so greedy. Bad enough she has to win every award, but now trying to take our kids’ spots when they’ve worked so hard? And for what—bragging rights? I can’t believe how far some people will go.”
Kelly bit her inner lip hard to keep from snorting at Patti’s hypocrisy. She knew for a fact that Patti had forced her son, Nicholas, to study Arabic starting in eighth grade because she heard from someone in the Penn admissions office that Arabic studies students were an institutional priority.
“Has anyone heard which schools Winnie’s actually applying to? I mean, top ten is kinda vague,” Amanda said. “Is she using the U.S. News & World Report list or maybe Forbes?”
“Probably Forbes because they rank based on salaries coming out of college,” Diana said. “I have to imagine that’s important to her, you know, given her situation.”
“Do you think I need to worry that she’s applying to Middlebury?” Sarah asked.
There was an awkward pause in the conversation.
“I think you’re safe.” Kelly rested a hand on Sarah’s arm. “But, gals, aren’t we getting off track? I mean, isn’t the most important question not which top-ten schools she’s considering but which one she’s applying to early?”
“In theory, that may be true. But our counselor told us most Ivy Plus early applications get deferred, so that would mean most of us could eventually be pitted against her in the regular decision pool,” Patti pointed out.
“This is absurd,” Amanda scoffed. “I can’t believe Maren was naive enough to think they could get away with lying about her not going to college. As if Alicia would ever hire a personal assistant without a college degree? I’m surprised she doesn’t demand her assistants have master’s or PhDs.”
“If Winnie lies on her applications, that could be bad for all of us if it damages EBA’s reputation,” Diana said. “As far as Michael and I are concerned, they should expel her. That kind of deceitful behavior shouldn’t be tolerated. As chair of the EBA board, I’ve demanded that Ted launch a formal investigation.”
Just then, Ms. Richards (aka Double Ass) popped her head into the conference room. “Sorry, ladies. But I need to clear the conference room now for an admin meeting.”
The women dispersed, and Kelly beelined out the doors of the administration building for her car. By the time she reached the school parking lot, she’d worked herself into a snit. The early admission deadline was in six days, and from the sound of it, Ted Clark wasn’t doing a damn thing to stop Maren and Winnie from using their bogus hook. As much as she enjoyed the cabal of outraged mothers conspiring to take Winnie down, what the hell did she have to do to get a goddamn answer to one very simple question: Was Winnie Pressley still applying to Stanford?
* * *
The whole Vernon family was home for dinner, which on its own was a special occasion on a weeknight, but tonight it was even more significant. Tonight was the night. Krissie was finally ready to push the Submit button on her Stanford early admission application. For weeks, Kelly had been imagining a meaningful way to mark this momentous occasion, even creating an Aspyre “notebook” with all her ideas. In the end, she’d kept it simple and settled on her two favorite things—a family dinner and a photo. Kelly stood behind Krissie—whose hands were on the keyboard with her dad positioned to her left and her siblings to her right—and leaned forward to rearrange her daughter’s hair so that it cascaded down her back. Krissie swatted her hand away, but not before Kelly noticed how strange her hair felt. Had she changed shampoo? Kelly thought better of mentioning it as she knew from experience her subjects would only pos
e for so long. Finally, she stepped back and pressed the button on her iPhone as Krissie did the deed. This milestone was another bittersweet reminder that her family of five, her primary raison d’être, would soon exist mostly as a relic in her iPhoto library.
After hugs and a few tears, Kelly sent them all to wash their hands for dinner. When she’d hugged Krissie, Kelly had taken the opportunity to run a hand over Krissie’s hair again. It felt synthetic. After Krissie’s trichotillomania diagnosis, Kelly had read online that some women used extensions to disguise their hair loss, but Krissie hadn’t done enough damage at the time to need them. And anyway, once Krissie started on the anxiety medication, her hair pulling seemed to abate. Her gut twisted at the idea that Krissie could be pulling out her hair again and not feeling like she could tell her mom. The end of the stressful college admissions process could not come soon enough. Maybe now that her application had been submitted, Krissie might be able to relax, even if Kelly couldn’t.
“Ugh, salmon.” Katherine wrinkled her nose as she walked into the kitchen. “You can have mine, Kaleb. What else is there? I’m a vegetarian. Remember, Mom?”
“Yes, Katherine, I remember your recent conversion to vegetarianism. It’s you who seemed to forget when you had sushi the other night with your friends,” she said, scooping quinoa onto each plate. “This is Krissie’s special night, so I made her favorite dinner.”
Katherine rolled her eyes.
Kelly didn’t mind that one of her daughters was flirting with vegetarianism. It seemed nearly every girl in Seattle tried it on for size at some point. She’d always attempted to model a dietary philosophy of “everything in moderation.” Until this year, her strategy had worked. But now, Kelly was eating everything in sight, and her daughters barely ate anything at all. As Kelly tossed the Caesar salad, she gave thanks that Katherine hadn’t put it together that the salad dressing contained anchovies. Morally questionable or not, Kelly had no intention of pointing this out, lest she further complicate her already absurd daily meal-planning contortions. No gluten or dairy for Krissie. No meat for Katherine. Loads of meat and carbs for Kaleb but no slimy tomatoes. No soups or casseroles for Kevin—battle wounds from his childhood with a working mom.
As they gathered around the table, Kevin raised his glass. “To Krissie!” he said, beaming at his eldest daughter. “Your work ethic, your focus, and your determination are a credit to you and our family. You’re an outstanding role model.”
Kaleb sniggered. Krissie would be leaving big shoes behind to fill, and Kaleb was turning out to be the kind of kid who preferred to stay barefoot.
“It’s out of your hands now,” Kevin continued, “but you can feel great knowing you’ve given Stanford your best shot.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Krissie said, “but I don’t want a participation trophy.”
Kelly exchanged a worried look with her husband.
“Regardless of the outcome,” Kevin said, “we love you and couldn’t be more proud of the person you’ve become.”
“Absolutely,” Kelly said, reaching out to touch her daughter’s arm.
“Whatever,” Krissie said, stabbing at her salmon.
“Dinner looks great, Kel,” Kevin said. “So anyway, other than Krissie submitting her application, anything newsworthy happen today?”
Kaleb snorted but continued shoveling food into his mouth.
“I got assigned a solo for the winter concert,” Katherine offered.
“That’s great, Kath,” Kevin said.
“Is it your American Protégé piece?” Kelly asked. Last week, Katherine had submitted her oboe audition recording to the prestigious national competition. The ultimate prize was a chance to perform onstage at Carnegie Hall. Kelly was already envisioning how that would look on Katherine’s college application in a couple years’ time. College. Like a Pavlovian dog, mere thought of the word caused her mind to ignore Katherine’s answer and swerve right back to early decision. Without warning, she heard herself blurt, “Krissie, any new scuttlebutt about where everyone is applying early?”
Krissie’s color rose, and she stared down at her plate. Loose locks of hair framed her face.
“Well, have you heard anything?” Kelly pressed.
“God, Mom. You’re, like, the most annoying song ever playing on repeat.” Krissie narrowed her eyes. “I submitted my application, like, twenty minutes ago, and we’re already back to worrying about what everyone else is doing. Why isn’t anything ever enough for you?” She jumped up from her seat and dumped her plate in the sink. “I’m done. Can I please be excused? I need to study. Don’t want to blow my grades and ruin my chances with Stanford.”
“Krissie, this is your favorite dinner, and you didn’t eat anything. And you know you can’t just throw your plate in the sink. Scrape your food into the compost bin or we’ll get fined by the city.”
Krissie scowled at her mother from the sink, scooped up a pile of salad with her hand, and shoved it into her mouth before making a half-hearted attempt to scrape her plate. She left the kitchen without another word. Lovely. Kaleb mumbled something about homework, left his empty plate on the table, and followed his sister out of the room. Katherine stayed seated for a moment but must have realized where the conversation was headed and took off after her siblings.
Kelly threw her napkin on the table.
“You just had to go there, huh?” Kevin said.
Kelly cleared the table, annoyed over her family’s ungrateful behavior after she’d spent hours preparing dinner. “I was just curious if she’d heard anything.”
“What does it matter at this point?” Kevin asked, setting his empty dish on the counter next to the sink. Not waiting for an answer to his semi-rhetorical question, Kevin said, “I gotta catch up on my email. Thanks for dinner.”
After the brief and furious dinner frenzy, Kelly looked around at the mess that would take her an hour to clean up. But her irritation over the untidy kitchen was far outweighed by the nagging feeling she still hadn’t done enough to get her accomplished daughter into her alma mater. Just because Krissie had submitted her application, that didn’t mean Kelly’s job was finished. Far from it. Pushing aside several dirty dishes on the island, she cleared a spot for her laptop. If EBA wasn’t going to do anything about Maren’s deceit, perhaps it was time to dig deeper. With so much already invested in this college endeavor, Kelly didn’t think twice as she typed her credit card information into a website promising a comprehensive background check for $500.
12
Alicia
Alicia dimmed the lights and lit her favorite magnolia-scented candle, allowing the lovely smell to envelop her. A bath was the soothing balm she needed to restore her spirits after another grueling day at the office. She dipped a foot in the water just as she heard the ping of an incoming text. She sighed, turned off the spigot, and ran naked to her dressing room where she’d left her phone. She’d check to make sure everything was OK, and then into the bubbles she’d go.
Emily Johnson: Hi, Alicia! It’s Emily Johnson. Chloe’s mom. So sorry to bother you. I know you must be so busy. I wasn’t sure if I should text what with your huge job, but I thought you might want to know.
Good God. Why did Emily have to introduce herself every time she sent Alicia a text? Brooke and Chloe had been friends since they’d started at EBA. Emily, along with most other stay-at-home moms, prefaced every conversation with “I know you must be so busy, but…” Maybe they thought they were being respectful because she really was busy all the time, but nevertheless, it felt like a dig. As if she wasn’t an attentive mother because she was busy working.
Alicia: What’s up?
She waited, naked and freezing, watching the typing indicator bubbles.
Emily: Brooke is sexting with a boy who goes to Greenleaf. If this is news to you, you might want to check her phone.
If this was news to her? Alici
a knew she should be thankful that Emily had the guts to text her directly rather than blast the juicy dirt out through the EBA grapevine (although she might do that too), but it still felt like crap to hear from another mother that her daughter had screwed up. Yet again.
Alicia: Thx for letting me know.
Alicia threw her phone on her bed. Sexting? She pulled the drain plug in the tub. No amount of bubbles could relax her now. Would Brooke really do something this stupid and put her mother’s reputation at risk? Unfortunately, Alicia knew all too well the answer to that question was an emphatic yes.
* * *
Earlier in the day, Brooke had texted that she was having dinner with the soccer team after the game and then hanging out at Tenley’s, which Alicia’s security detail had confirmed. It was nearly half past ten on a work night, and Alicia was meeting her trainer at six a.m. for high-intensity interval training, by far the most demanding of her trainer’s workouts. However, she couldn’t deny its effectiveness for weight control, so in less than eight hours, she’d be doing burpees to the brink of puking. As much as she wanted to crawl into bed and deal with Brooke tomorrow, this sexting situation could not wait.
When Brooke finally sauntered in through the mudroom, Alicia looked up from her laptop and removed her reading glasses. “Hey, congrats on the win today.”
“How would you know?” Brooke opened the refrigerator.
Alicia kneaded her forehead. “I wanted to be there, but my meeting ran long. Chef Louise made you a Cobb salad. It’s on the bottom shelf.”
Alicia studied Brooke, looking for clues as to what was going on with her daughter. Lately, she was looking more mature, dressing more provocatively, and wearing her dark hair—newly highlighted ombré purple—in a flowing, tousled style that screamed sexy and rebellious. “So what’d you do tonight?”
Girls with Bright Futures Page 13
